Walter Haefner

Organization founder

1910 – 2012

34

Who was Walter Haefner?

Walter Haefner was a businessman and a Thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder in Ireland. He was born in Switzerland.

As a young man Haefner went to work in the auto industry as an employee of the Swiss division of General Motors Corporation. He eventually moved to England where he acquired an automobile franchise before returning home to open a Volkswagen dealership. Recognizing the important role a computer could play in his growing chain of dealerships, in 1957 Haefner became one of the first in Switzerland to import an IBM system for business use. This led to his 1964 creation of Automation Center A.G., a computer services company in Zurich. In 1976 he expanded operations to the United States and, after merging his company with Russell Artzt's and Charles Wang's publicly owned Computer Associates in 1987, Haefner was the company's largest individual shareholder until his death. He owned AMAG Automobil- und Motoren, a highly successful Swiss automobile dealership chain. Until his death, at age 101, he was the oldest person worth more than a billion dollars.

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Born
Sep 13, 1910
Zürich
Education
  • University of Zurich
Employment
  • AMAG Automobil und Motoren
Died
Jun 19, 2012

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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"Walter Haefner." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/walter_haefner>.

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